There comes the pallbearer

Here comes the pallbearer

He is the man in the mirror

Where the mockingbirds are

Do you see the flapping wings?

This is the part

Where you believe in

What I believe in...

If you read this line

And this one

Then you are many steps behind me...

The pallbearer

Came with his hands bare

My pallbearers

Are smiling...

Where I am

Is where I am

The mirror is shattered

Now your eyes are my mirrors

A thousand errors

But you think you are right

The mirrors

The mockingbirds

You are never alone

The bearer of my body totters

Musk

Hoor al ain

Green birds...

I’m not dead...!

I’m sorry mother

But this world isn’t what I wish for us

I’m sorry mother

But I’ve to sell my life for our jannah…

My brothers will understand

That my death will bring good

To a chosen 70

But I’m sure my love

In the cold of Ternopil

Will never understand

Why my pallbearers

Came too soon...

I’m sorry

But I can’t have a life

When the Ummah is bleeding...

Untitled Expressions

I think it’s going to be one hell of a trip. Pockets are full and the tank is filled up with fuel. My bags are all packed up and I took a camera just in case. It’s a vacation trip, it’s a work trip, I’m really not sure what it is… I’m leaving my home to live far away; where I’ll be nothing but a simple immigrant.

I think it, hoping I get to live it. Do my words always have to make sense? Does life have to be as straightforward as directions? There is what I mean when I write, there is what you think I mean when you read and there is what I want you to think…

I’m walking through the white sands of the filthy beach. Barefooted. My thoughts are at base. No rolls, no fire… just those beautiful words in Arabic.

My love for you is an illusion. It’s a picture I painted in my thoughts. Amnesia. I lost the image, I’ve lost you. Maybe there was never a you because you were never the you I thought I knew. You lied. If I really meant that much to you, you wouldn’t have let me slip away.

You gladly shoo me. Tell me to run along… you watch and smile because he is right behind you, holding you so close. Did I ever exist? You don’t seem to exist here. You never did have a place in my heart because you sold it to my solitude.

I think it’s time I walk away. I’m coming after you because I don’t want to die here. I want you in my arms when I die. You belong in my arms. Love, fear, hope… I still believe you are probably the only solution to my worried heart…  

Derailed .... ....... .....

I wrote a poem for you but I couldn’t tell you it was a poem for you because there should always be a ‘be’ before the ‘cause’. If you are following the train of thoughts then shall I then call you the rail? Or are you better off as the steam engine train itself? My train of thoughts have been derailed...

The many times I look into your eyes and the many times I look away because the thought of you is like the thought of a teaspoon filling a bucket. I don’t care what lay ahead. I don’t know what my words mean but I hope I understand what these words mean.

I’m here but I’m there. You are there but you are here... I’m working up a puzzle. I’m building a maze through my cardiac muscle. Who you are doesn’t matter. It never did and it never will.

What matters is what I am when your voice evades my thoughts...

Are you still following?

Good!

Now read it all over again because I wrote it for you... 

What have you achieved?

I’d like to tell you how amazing the past few days have been for me. I’ve spoken to so many new people, including someone I’d been secretly crushing on for about two years. I’ve challenged myself beyond my expectations. I successfully did 5 push ups because a couple of girls cheered me on. Truth is I barely hit 3 when I’m alone in my room. Before the past few days I thought I was a bad actor but now I’ve second thoughts about that.

At this point I’m quite sure you think I’ve lost it, let me assure you that I’m only trying to draw a fine point in your mind.

You’ve to realize that I’ve made you read over a hundred words. I believe I’ve achieved a lot now so I’m retiring to bed. What have you achieved?

...into this space

4.

Staring into this space and looking into the reasons why there is too much within that isn’t without. Thoughts are strong, they could be stronger, but actions are weaker than the thoughts that perceived them. We live but we die each day until we are dead. Listen to me but hear the sounds that give you life. The people we are is the facade of the people that were. Are there questions that my questions haven’t answered? Or are there answers that my questions contradict? Do you know what you are hearing? Did you understand what you heard?

To the many questions of life I suggest you simply smile while your mind, body and soul settle the dispute within...   

But into this space, and into this space, for into this space there are more questions than there are answers... 

All i could say

 

Riddles on my mind, questions for the lady who stole my thoughts

when she spoke...

My mind went Deeper than the depth of the squirrel’s hole

But most shallow were my actions when she spoke...

I didn’t stare at her for too long

I didn’t have to raise my head to watch in admiration

For her voice drew the most detailed images in my mind...

And when I had the chance to tell her how much of a fool her voice turned me into

All I could say was “I love your voice, you have a beautiful voice...”

Words of the coward in me to the stranger that stole my mind...

I doubt her voice will cease to plunge me into the abyss of tomfoolery

But I can pretend that this stranger means no more than a painting at the gallery

The big lies I tell myself...

Whoever believed there existed an elf

Or elves and the whole Santa story!

If she is a lie I’m bound to live

Then my thoughts I will give!

To the paintings her voice creates in my thoughts;

I will be the millionaire collector

But like a convicted debtor

I will keep my distance...

I might be just like you!

3.

The world around me is moving too fast. My hands are stretched out. I need to catch up but I keep falling back. I’m losing the purpose of my existence. There is me and there is the me that lives on my desires. I don’t know how much of the things I’ve been through really matter. Did I find myself doing those things because they were right for me or because it’s all written? Each day a thousand questions flood my straying thoughts. I want to live in my own world; a world where there is me and only me with all the things I love. That could be just one place, heaven! No matter how hard I try I still don’t feel like I deserve my desires.

To the lips that bark at me and the lips that wag at my back and the lips that spit praises of me; I’m no more than a struggling young man, I don’t confirm the rumours about me and I won’t accept the praises... all I can do is smile and keep my secrets to myself.

To the eyes that claim to see the other side of me; I’m no three dimensional image...

So just watch, just look, for I might be just like you...  

footsteps and the shadows...

2.

Footsteps and the shadows that evade my straying thoughts, darkness and the childhood I keep having nightmares about... alone; that’s what we are but that’s what I was. I look ahead hoping I see us walking like we used to. Is there something I did wrong? Or is fate telling me there can’t be a you when I wake up? My love for the black angels and the widow who was white; are there questions I’ve refused to answer? I will say what I can, I fear no one besides the Merciful Creator and if there should be fear of the created then the heart is dripping with soot.

I’m weak; there are no doubts to the frailty of the stick that stands alone. Maybe I’m that stick that can bend to both ends without being split into two pieces. I’m here and I’m there but my wish is that I drop dead with a bullet through the heart I allowed to sin. My wish is that I drop dead for Allah’s sake. What else is better than selling your life for the bliss of the hereafter?

I don’t fear you, No! I can’t fear the man who worships the desires of Allah’s enemies. Cages will only make me like Yusif and bullets will only make me like the men that bled on Badr. Now tell me who the loser is.

Footsteps towards my dream and the shadows that merely darken the path I tread...

Alhamdulilah!       

...the cutlasses remain blunt

1.

If there is so much that we can do then why do we do too little as men? Is it that we have stopped believing or do we blame the imaginary forces against progress? I am because my parents were. Each person on this earth is part of the bigger picture, the ever growing network of people; the children of Adam!  I can only hold on to two hands during this short trip which, to me, has an unknown fate. In the end, all that matters is faith in the Lord of the man who split the moon.

If a man leaves his peaceful home to cause havoc in his neighbour’s home then his neighbour has the right to control + C the exact same havoc and control + V it where it came from. That is the law of retribution. Forgiveness is divine, man is but a slave to the Lord of the worlds. I had no say in the decision to create ‘me’ so why should my lips question the decree of God. I submit my limbs and heart to the service of the one who created you and everyone else that was and is.

Blood is red, skins are tender but the cutlasses remain blunt...

You think I'm scared...

 

A breeze with a thousand words

My eyes are weakened by tears

And my bare scalp; a mere spectacle

The feel of ink on paper

The disposition of a forlorn poet...

Lost in the times I thought we shared

Found in the hope that it isn’t over after all

The wind carries far sounds to my inquisitive ears

A million reasons for the oppressed to take up arms

The man who stands up to the oppressor is like a bird...

Like the hawk I’ve always loved

Or like the cold blooded black beauty that caressed my foot.

I’m a man wandering in the emptiness of my heart.

I’m torn in between the fleeting and the eternal

Let the soil in my mother’s garden decide...

As much as there is hope, there is fear;

Hope begets fear.

If I grow my beard it’s because I belong; the expected gong!

The obstinate desire to be amongst those foremost in faith

So let’s take a third look at why we are here.

It’s cold,

The clouds look heavy,

No stars to wonder at,

A heart filled with faith,

And the hope that my fear

Leads me back to you...

If you thought Jenin was the only reason to cry

Then Arakaan and Gujarat

Are just two more out of hundreds...

Again the Zionists blind us with dust...

Those who sit and watch passively are like the cattle

That tread the footpaths of the Fouta Djallon...

The darkness of my heart,

And the light in the horizon.

I’ve walked the thousandth mile,

And still I wonder when I shall reach

The standards set by the man who split the moon

Allah knows best...

I’m just a slave who ended with a period.

Or two..

 so you thought i got scared after the third period...

The way we look at life

The way we look at life affects the impact we have on society. If let’s say we decide to see the incessant power cuts as a way to reduce the cost of living or we see the inadequate job openings as a reason to create our own jobs then you would realize that complaining about certain harsh truths of society becomes useless and a total waste of time. Problems are nature’s way of telling us that nothing is ever complete and the vacuum exists because it’s our task to fill the void.

One morning as I walked to the bus station I noticed a woman walking down the street selling some items. I was struck by a thought; the money she makes from her sales in a whole week wouldn’t be up to what someone spends on a bottle of water at a high class restaurant/hotel. Society is split into different levels with regards to the amount of wealth a person possesses. Those at the base do the most menial jobs for paltry sums. I remember seeing a man tottering beneath a huge bag of rice somewhere in Conakry (Guinea). I felt bad immediately after my late cousin, Fatima (May Allah accept her soul), told me how much he was going to be paid for his pain. Why do the rich hoard it all and totally ignore those below? I always ask myself why someone would want to own a private jet when there are people who don’t even have food to eat. Isn’t there a social structure to make the distribution of wealth even?

Islam does have a solution to the uneven distribution of wealth; the Zakat system and the countless Quran verses and Hadiths that order the believers to give to charity. The Bible equally orders Christians to give alms. It's the same in all religions. It’s sad that what we have today is a dysfunctional generation who have no care for society, a generation that beautifies the body as the soul wallows in puddles and dumps of  filth, a generation that would rather spend huge sums of money on the latest gadgets than take a second look at a beggar. Does life have to be all about what we should do to be comfortable or it should factor in those who may need us to be comfortable too? More often than not people would rather spend on themselves than spend on someone else. I know beggars will always be on the streets no matter how many times we drop coins in their calabashes but isn’t it great that you helped feed a man instead of spending hundreds on clothes you might probably wear just twice?

Maybe if we thought about death often we won’t think twice about giving out our excess money to those who need it most. Has it ever occurred to you that you could be dead the minute after you refuse to give that street beggar some of your money? That ghc100 you had in your pocket will probably be stolen by the mortuary men or the benevolent men who remove your lifeless body from the car’s wreckage. What happened to altruism?

Below is an extract from one of Yacine M. Diallo’s Facebook updates;

“...I don’t disregard wealth, stability, and recognition – I just choose to have at the top of my list Personal development, Moral duties, Faithful beliefs and altruism.”

The world needs people who think of humanity as a whole body, people who view their existence as part of the bigger picture, people who recognise the society’s need for their support and not people who thrive on being egoistic and selfish. Anyone who doesn’t think of others is an awfully pathetic member of the society. If you can’t help society’s underprivileged then the best you can do is sympathize with them and not treat them like animals because they don’t wear your kinda clothes, drive your kinda car or even smell the way you smell. On countless occasions I’ve seen supposedly wealthy people stare at supposedly poor people with disgust in their eyes. But can we really tell who is poor from who is rich? Or does it even matter how society defines rich and poor? Life on this earth encompasses an insignificant duration if compared to the afterlife. Someone lived a 100 years on earth, cool! But he died about 3,000 years ago. A hundred years on earth, 3,000 years and counting in the afterlife/grave. Now I think we all agree that the true rich man is the man who has earned Allah’s mercy and is in the bliss of the afterlife, even though people on the earth used to look down on him because he didn’t have money.

The way we look at life is indeed the key to living a life of true success and fulfilment. Always remember that you are assured one thing, and that is your near death.     

Snakes in my Closet

 

There are snakes in my closet

I can’t change my clothes

So I change my shoes

Then I walk the talk of the Lao Tsu monks

And talk the walk of the Tableegh

 

A million miles

Crossing the smiles

Of the bank of the Nile

 

A thousand miles

And oh there comes Alidu’s bile

Dreadful of the foreseen act so vile

 

And still I boast

Of how all the Marabous of West Africa

Wonder at the meaning of my words...

 

Perhaps the intricacy of the unseen

Knows no place in my thoughts

Perhaps the depth of the spirits unseen

Are shallow pits in my world

 

The talking drum of the Wulomei

I see feet dispersing dust

I see priestesses clad in charms

Moving to the rythm of the beats...

I am in a trance

 

Snakes in my shoes

Then I shall walk barefooted

 Cracked feet...

 

Why call Obama black

When he is equally white?

The mind of the African has been beaten by elementary biology!

 

If I announce my hunger

I shall die of starvation

But if I sweat

I shall eat

There is reward after toil

 

And then there was a period.

.

.

.

and several others...